My troubles started when the video card on my basement server bought the farm. I could not find the exact replacement for a Nvidia GeForce 7100GS so I selected a GeForce 8400 thinking that the drivers could be the same. After installing the new card and trying to bring up Xorg and KDE the screen went blank. The only way to kill the offending process was to use telnet from another machine. It is nice to have access to the Internet when I have need for it.

Searching for drivers from Nvidia for FreeBSD I found this NVIDIA-FreeBSD-x86-260.19.36.tar.gz. So I downloaded it and tried to run make and it told me that I need version 7.1 or later. I am running 6.2 because there has been no need to upgrade until now.

So it’s update time. I have an extra hard drive that I use to try stuff on before I try it on something important. Good place to try the latest version. After I downloaded 8.2 from the FreeBSD sites I find that there is a file FreeBSD-8.2-RC3-amd64-dvd1.iso.xz that has yet another compression algorithm.

Here we go again! I downloaded from the FreeBSD fresh ports xz.tar.gz that will decompress the .xz file or so it says. However when I try it I get the following error;

Prometheus# pwd
/usr/ports/accessibility/xz
Prometheus# make install clean
===> Vulnerability check disabled, database not found
=> xz-5.0.0.tar.gz is not in /usr/ports/accessibility/xz/distinfo.
=> Either /usr/ports/accessibility/xz/distinfo is out of date, or
=> xz-5.0.0.tar.gz is spelled incorrectly.
*** Error code 1
Stop in /usr/ports/accessibility/xz.
Prometheus#

The CD version does not have the ports collection on it. It only has the DOCS.

Any idea what I am doing wrong other than buying cheap junk made in China?

IIRC more than 90% of all computer hardware is manufactured in China. Your iPhone too, only that is sold expensively by Apple. All big names in the computer industry shop in China, where the Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers have their factories. These companies also buy cheap and sell expensive.

And in case you are in the USA, you better be nice to China. Remember without China buying up US government bonds the USA would be declared bankrupt

__________________
You don't need to be a genius to debug a pf.conf firewall ruleset, you just need the guts to run tcpdump

Thanks for the reply. I tried to do a package add but it could not find the file for ver 6.2. I have not touched the system for a couple of years and things tend to get fuzzy. The system just keeps running and never breaks.

Thanks again.

Now for a quick comment. You can't buy anything made in the USA because anything of value has been sold to the highest bidder and any talent has been exported to the lowest wage source. The US is already bankrupt only the powers that be keep putting a spin on it.

I was still wondering, how come that video cards can buy farms, that I forgot you are still on 6.2

"Bought the Farm" is an old American idiom that dates back to the Barnstormers after WW I when the pilot crashed his plane and died in a farmer's field in doing so destroyed the crops. His estate was liable for the damage to the farm. So the expression "Bought the Farm" means that he, she, or it has died. The idiom "Gone South" has the same meaning, that has died. When I took the video card out it was hot enough to burn your skin and had a couple of melted electrolytic capacitors.

All kidding aside I really appreciate you help. The RC3 version I downloaded on Friday from ftp10.us.freebsd.org. It was the only one there. I have found the RELEASE version on ftp.5.us.freebsd.org and attempting to download it.

There is one thing that I want to point out is that the xz program that you pointed me to does not work. Running it an error occurs;

$ xz
xz: 33: Syntax error: "(" unexpected

The download file size is 236 KB.
I downloaded the same file from ftp.us.5.freebsd.org and the size was 251 KB.
When I run it I get this.

I need to find the missing piece. It appears that all the sites may not be up to date????

I can't get man to work so that is something I need to look into. No manual entry. I might go the way of the network install and forget creating a DVD for the update. I have never done it and that should be exciting. I need to find some time in the next few days. As I said it is a server and is working just fine with the new card without any Xorg and KDE working.